Sunday, December 28, 2008

I've had this clock for ages. About 5 years in fact. It was my oldest daughter's that she did not use. It ticked too loud for her. LOL So in the closet it sat. I always intended to use it, but never got around to it and also didn't personally care for the industrial look of it, but being a packrat, I just couldn't toss it out. SO I FINALLY got round to making it more my own. It was super easy!

I went from this to.... This! Much better in my opinion. Of course, you can use any fabric that you love!

So....

#1- Find the fabric that you want to use and iron it. You can use some starch on it if you want, I suppose, I did not and it turned out fine.

#2- Take your clock apart. Take off the cover and the hands. You may need to unscrew a small nut and washer that is under the hands in order to get the paper front off. With a piece of chalk, mark on the clock where 12 is, so that you know what is the top of the clock and to help align your paper when you later use it as a template. Word of advice- Do not just cut off the paper haphazardly (like I did)! You will want to keep it fairly intact so that you can mark your numbers properly when you get your fabric on.

#3- Lay your clock down and make sure that it has 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom. You have to get it as perfectly straight as you can so that when you hang it that the 12 is at the top properly AND your fabric pattern will look right.#4- Spread your fabric over your clock, making sure that your pattern is placed how you want it.#5- Cut a small nick out in the middle for the clock mechanism to come through and so you can put the hands back on later.

#6- Once you have it all lined up like you want it, lift up the bottom half of the fabric very gently. Give the exposed clock a small blast of adhesive (I used Craft Bond.... but I you can use glue stick, it doesn't need to be a permanent bond as you will be lifting it back up) If you use a spray remember to put some masking or painters tape around the clock edge so you don't accidentally get it all over where it should go (OOPS) Keep this tape, you will need it again later.#7- Fold the fabric back into place and give it a little rub/tap to help it adhere.#8- Repeat for the top half of the clock.

#9- Use a pencil with a sharp edge and trace around the inside corner of the clock. You want the pencil sharp so that it really gets into the crevice. This line is where you will be cutting the fabric and you want it to cover the entire face and not have places not covered. If you don't get trace all the way into the corner, when you cut it, you might not get full coverage. Use your fingers to hold the fabric down taut as you trace around.

#10- Cut on your line. You actually need to cut JUST on the outside of your line, less than 1mm. You have to be very careful. If you cut on the inside of the line at all, you won't get full coverage, if you cut too much on the outside of your line, you get way too much excess. This is why you need a temporary bond with your glue , you want the fabric to stay in place while you trace, but you will have to lift the fabric up to cut it.

#11- Now you should be rid of all the extra fabric and just have the circle of fabric sitting in your clock. Put your tape back around the edges of the clock. Lift up your fabric on the bottom half of the clock. Give it a good coat of adhesive. Don't over do it, you don't want the adhesive to soak through your fabric and show through. I did spray a bit too much and just let it dry a minute or so before I replaced my fabric.#12- Repeat for the top half of the clock.

#13- Smooth down your fabric, make it nice and pretty. (ignore the pink ribbon, it didn't work out and I had to take it off because the top cover wouldn't go back on properly)#14- Replace your the nut/washer onto the clock hardware.

#15- Use the paper facing that you cut out and use as a template for where to place your numbers or other marking for numbers. Place the paper back in the clock making sure you have the 12 at the top.#16- Use sicissors to snip each number you want to mark. I snipped and marked them all, but ended up only marking 12, 3, 6, and 9. Mark with a water or air soluble pen)

#17- Put the hands back on the clock. (I decided NOT to put the red seconds hand back on because I didn't like the red on pink and also... I broke it! LOL)

#18- You can mark your clock anyway you want. This was my original plan, but didn't like it. My second idea was bobbins, but they were too big. That's why you put the hands back on first, to make sure they don't hit whatever you use.

#19- I decided to go with these. Heavy Duty Snaps, just the caps.

#20- Place the cap into the strike plate and hammer down the post so that it's flat.

#21- Glue them onto the clock where you would like to mark (I did 12, 3, 6, 9)